A2I« 


Adams 

"Imperialism"  and  "The  Tracks  of  Our 
Forefathers" 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Clark  J.  Milliroa 

I 


"  Imperialism  " 


AND 


"The  Tracks  of  Our  Forefathers' 


CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS 


xington,  Massachusetts,  Historic 


KMBER    20,    1898 


"Iti  a  word,  many  wise  men  thought  it  a  time  wherein  those  two  miserable 
adjuncts,  which  Nerva  was  deified  for  uniting,  imferium  et  libertas,  were  as  well 
reconciled  as  is  possible."— Cl  ry  of  the  Rebtll 

"  I  put  my  foot  in  the  tracks  of  our  forefathers,  where  I  can  neither  wander  nor 
•!h  America. 


BOvSTON 
DANA   ESTKS   &    COMPANY 

2IO   SUMMER    STREET 
1899 


"IMPERIALISM" 

AND 

"THE  TRACKS  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS." 


WHAT  the  feast  of  the  Passover  was  to  the  children  of 
Israel,  that  the  days  between  the  nineteenth  of  December 
and  the  fourth  of  January  —  the  Yuletide  —  are  and  will 
remain  to  the  people  of  New  England.  The  Passover  began 
"  in  the  first  month  on  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  month  at 
even,"  and  it  lasted  one  week,  "  until  the  one  and  twentieth 
day  of  the  month  at  even."  It  was  the  period  of  the  sacrifice 
of  the  Paschal  lamb,  and  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread ;  and 
of  it  as  a  commemoration  it  is  written,  "  When  your  children 
shall  say  unto  you,  What  mean  ye  by  this  service  ?  that 
ye  shall  say,  It  is  the  sacrifice  of  the  Lord's  passover,  who 
passed  over  the  houses  of  the  children  of  Israel  in  Egypt, 
when  he  smote  the  Egyptians.  Now  the  sojourning  of  the 
children  of  Israel,  who  dwelt  in  Egypt,  was  four  hundred 
and  thirty  years."  And  thus,  by  their  yearly  Passover, 
were  the  Jewish  congregations  of  old  put  in  mind  what 
farewell  they  took  of  the  land  of  Egypt. 

So  our  own  earliest  records  tell  us  that  it  was  on  the 
morning  of  Saturday,  of  what  is  now  the  nineteenth  of 
December,  that  the  little  exploring  party  from  the  Mayflower, 
then  lying  at  her  anchor  in  Provincetown  Harbor,  after  a 
day  and  night  of  much  trouble  and  danger,  sorely  buffeted 
by  wind  and  wave  in  rough  New  England's  December  seas, 
found  themselves  on  an  island  in  Plymouth  Bay.  It  was  a 
mild,  "  faire  sunshining  day.  And  this  being  the  last  day  of 
the  weeke,  they  prepared  ther  to  keepe  the  Sabath.  On 
Munday  they  sounded  the  harbor,  and  marched  into  the  land, 
and  found  a  place  fitt  for  situation.  So  they  returned  to 
their  shipp  againe  [at  Provincetown]  with  this  news.  On 
the  twenty-fifth  of  December  they  weyed  anchor  to  goe  to 


825383 


the  place  they  had  discovered,  and  came  within  two  leagues 
of  it,  but  were  faine  to  bear  up  againe  ;  but  the  twenty-sixth 
day,  the  winde  came  faire,  and  they  arrived  safe  in  this 
harbor.  And  after  wards  tooke  better  view  of  the  place,  and 
resolved  wher  to  pitch  their  dwelling  ;  and  the  fourth  day  [of 
January]  begane  to  erecte  the  first  house  for  commone  use  to 
receive  them  and  their  goods."  Such,  in  the  quaint  language 
of  Bradford,  is  the  calendar  of  New  England's  Passover  ; 
and,  beginning  on  the  nineteenth  of  December,  it  ends  on 
the  fourth  of  January,  covering  as  nearly  as  may  be  the 
Christmas  holyday  period. 

Is  there  any  better  use  to  which  the  Passover  anniversary 
can  be  put  than  to  retrospection?  "And  when  your  chil- 
dren shall  say  unto  you,  What  mean  you  by  this  service  ? 
ye  shall  say,  It  is  the  sacrifice  of  the  Lord's  passover,  when 
he  smote  the  Egyptians,  and  delivered  our  houses."  So  the 
old  story  is  told  again,  being  thus  kept  ever  green  in  memory  ; 
and,  in  telling  it,  the  experiences  of  the  past  are  brought 
insensibly  to  bear  on  the  conditions  of  the  present.  Thus, 
once  a  year,  like  the  Israelites  of  old,  we,  as  a  people,  may 
take  our  bearings  and  verify  our  course,  as  we  plunge  on  out 
of  the  infinite  past  into  the  unknowable  future.  It  is  a 
useful  practice  ;  and  we  are  here  this  first  evening  of  our 
Passover  period  to  observe  it. 

This,  too,  is  an  Historical  Society,  —  that  of  Lexington,  ' '  a 
name,"  as,  when  arraigned  before  the  tribunal  of  the  French 
Terror,  Danton  said  of  his  own,  "tolerably  known  in  the 
Revolution  ; ' '  and  I  am  invited  to  address  you  because  I  am 
President  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  the  most 
venerable  organization  of  the  sort  in  America,  perhaps  in  the 
world.  Thus,  to-night,  though  we  shall  necessarily  have  to 
touch  on  topics  of  the  day,  and  topics  exciting  the  liveliest 
interest  and  most  active  discussion,  we  will  in  so  doing  look 
at  them,  —  not  as  politicians  or  as  partisans,  nor  from  the 
commercial  or  religious  side,  but  solely  from  the  historical 
point  of  view.  We  shall  judge  of  the  present  in  its  relations 
to  the  past.  And,  unquestionably,  there  is  great  satisfaction 
to  be  derived  from  so  doing  ;  the  mere  effort  seems  at  once  to 
take  us  into  another  atmosphere,  —  an  atmosphere  as  foreign 
to  unctuous  cant  as  it  is  to  what  is  vulgarly  known  as 


"electioneering  taffy."  This  evening  we  pass  away  from 
the  noisy  and  heated  turmoil  of  partisan  politics,  with  its 
appeals  to  prejudice,  passion,  and  material  interest,  into  the 
cool  of  a  quiet  academic  discussion.  It  is  like  going  out  of 
some  turbulent  caucus,  or  exciting  ward-room  debate,  and 
finding  oneself  suddenly  confronted  by  the  cold,  clear  light 
of  the  December  moon,  shining  amid  the  silence  of  innumer- 
able stars. 

Addressing  ourselves,  therefore,  to  the  subject  in  hand,  the 
question  at  once  suggests  itself,  —  What  year  in  recent  times 
has  been  in  a  large  way  more  noteworthy  and  impressive, 
when  looked  at  from  the  purely  historical  point  of  view,  than 
this  year  of  which  we  are  now  observing  the  close  ?  The 
first  Passover  of  the  Israelites  ended  a  drama  of  more  than 
four  centuries'  duration,  for  "the  sojourning  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel,  who  dwelt  in  Egypt,  was  four  hundred  and 
thirty  years  ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  four  hundred  and  thirty 
years  all  the  hosts  of  the  Lord  went  out  from  the  land 
of  Egypt."  So  the  Passover  we  now  celebrate  commem- 
orates the  closing  of  another  world  drama  of  almost  pre- 
cisely the  same  length,  and  one  of  deepest  significance,  as 
well  as  unsurpassed  historic  interest.  These  world  dramas 
are  lengthy  affairs ;  for,  while  we  men  are  always  in  a  hurry, 
the  Almighty  never  is :  on  the  contrary,  as  the  Psalmist 
observed,  so  now,  "  a  thousand  years  in  his  sight  are  but  as 
yesterday  when  it  is  past,  and  as  a  watch  in  the  night." 
The  drama  I  have  referred  to  as  this  week  brought  to  its 
close,  is  that  known  in  history  as  Spanish  Domination  in 
America.  It  began,  as  we  all  know,  on  the  twenty-first  of 
October,  1492  ;  it  has  been  continuous  through  six  years  over 
four  centuries.  It  now  passes  into  history ;  the  verdict  may 
be  made  up. 

So  far  as  I  personally  am  concerned,  —  a  matter  needless 
to  say  of  very  trifling  consequence,  —  this  verdict  was  ren- 
dered a  year  ago.  It  was  somewhat  Rhadamanthine  ;  but  a 
twelve-month  of  further  reflection  has  shown  no  cause  in  any 
respect  to  revise  it.  In  referring  to  what  was  then  plainly 
impending,  in  December,  1897,  before  the  blowing  up  of  the 
battleship  Maine,  before  a  conflict  had  become  inevitable,  I 
used  this  language  in  a  paper  read  to  the  Massachusetts  His- 


torical  Society :  ' '  When  looking  at  the  vicissitudes  of  human 
development,  we  are  apt  to  assume  a  certain  air  of  optimism, 
and  take  advancement  as  the  law  of  being,  as  a  thing  of  course, 
indisputable.  We  are  charitable,  too  ;  and  to  deny  to  any 
given  race  or  people  some  degree  of  use  in  the  economy  of 
Nature,  or  the  plan  of  Creation,  is  usually  regarded  as  indic- 
ative of  narrowness  of  view.  The  fatal,  final  word  "pessi- 
mist" is  apt  to  be  whispered  in  connection  with  the  name  of 
one  who  ventures  to  suggest  a  doubt  of  this  phase  of  the 
doctrine  known  as  Universalism.  And  yet,  at  this  time 
when,  before  our  eyes,  it  is  breathing  its  last,  I  want  some 
one  to  point  out  a  single  good  thing  in  law,  or  science,  or  art, 
or  literature,  —  material,  moral  or  intellectual, — which  has 
resulted  to  the  race  of  man  upon  earth  from  Spanish  domina- 
tion in  America.  I  have  tried  to  think  of  one  in  vain.  It 
certainly  has  not  yielded  an  immortality,  an  idea,  or  a  dis- 
covery ;  it  has,  in  fact,  been  one  long  record  of  reaction  and 
retrogression,  than  which  few  pages  in  the  record  of  mankind 
have  been  more  discouraging  or  less  fruitful  of  good.  What 
is  now  taking  place  in  Cuba  is  historical.  It  is  the  dying 
out  of  a  dominion,  the  influence  of  which  will  be  seen  and  felt 
for  centuries  in  the  life  of  two  continents ;  just  as  what  is 
taking  place  in  Turkey  is  the  last  fierce  flickering  up  of 
Asiatic  rule  in  Europe,  on  the  very  spot  where  twenty-four 
centuries  ago  Asiatic  rule  in  Europe  was  thought  to  have 
been  averted  forever.  The  two,  Ottoman  rule  in  Europe,  and 
Spanish  rule  in  America,  now  stand  at  the  bar  of  history ; 
and,  scanning  the  long  four-century  record  of  each,  I  have 
been  unable  to  see  what  either  has  contributed  to  the  accumu- 
lated possessions  of  the  human  race,  or  why  both  should  not 
be  classed  among  the  many  instances  of  the  arrested  civiliza- 
tion of  a  race,  developing  by  degrees  an  irresistible  tendency 
to  retrogression." 

This,  one  year  ago;  and  while  the  embers  of  the  last  Greco- 
Turkish  struggle,  still  white,  were  scarcely  cold  on  the  plain 
of  Marathon.  The  time  since  passed  has  yielded  fresh  proof 
in  support  of  this  harsh  judgment ;  for,  if  there  is  one  histor- 
ical law  better  and  more  irreversibly  established  than  another, 
it  is  that,  in  the  case  of  nations  even  more  than  in  the  case 
of  individuals,  their  sins  will  find  them  out, — the  day  of 


reckoning  may  not  be  escaped.  Noticeably,  has  this  proved 
so  in  the  case  of  Spain.  The  year  1500  may  be  said  to  have 
found  that  country  at  the  apex  of  her  greatness.  America 
had  then  been  newly  discovered ;  the  Moor  was  just  subdued. 
Nearly  half  a  century  before  (1453)  the  Roman  Empire  had 
fallen,  and,  with  the  storming  of  Constantinople  by  the  Sara- 
cens, disappeared  from  the  earth.  That  event,  it  may  be 
mentioned  in  passing,  closed  another  world  drama  continuous 
through  twenty-two  centuries,  —  upon  the  whole  the  most 
wonderful  of  the  series.  And  so,  when  Roman  empire 
vanished,  that  of  Spain  began.  It  was  ushered  in  by  the 
landfall  of  Columbus  ;  and  when,  just  three  hundred  years 
later,  in  1792,  the  subject  was  discussed  in  connection 
with  its  third  centennial,  the  general  verdict  of  European 
thinkers  was  that  the  discovery  of  America  had,  upon  the 
whole,  been  to  mankind  the  reverse  of  beneficent.  This 
conclusion  has  since  been  commented  upon  with  derision ; 
yet,  when  made,  it  was  right.  The  United  States  had  in 
1792  just  struggled  into  existence,  and  its  influence  on  the 
course  of  human  events  had  not  begun  to  make  itself  felt. 
Those  who  considered  the  subject  had  before  them,  therefore, 
only  Spanish  domination  in  America,  and  upon  that  their 
verdict  cannot  be  gainsaid ;  for,  from  the  year  1492  down, 
the  history  of  Spain  and  Spanish  domination  has  undeniably 
been  one  long  series  of  crimes  and  violations  of  natural  law, 
the  penalty  for  which  has  not  apparently  even  yet  been 
exacted  in  full. 

Of  those  national  crimes  four  stand  out  in  special  promi- 
nence, constituting  counts  in  a  national  indictment  than 
which  history  shows  few  more  formidable.  These  four  were  : 
(i)  The  expulsion,  first,  of  the  Jews,  and  then  of  the  Moors, 
or  Moriscoes,  from  Spain,  late  in  the  fifteenth  and  early  in 
the  sixteenth  centuries;  (2)  the  annals  of  "the  Council  of 
Blood ' '  in  the  Netherlands,  and  the  eighty  years  of  inter- 
necine warfare  through  which  Holland  fought  its  way  out 
from  under  Spanish  rule  ;  (3)  the  Inquisition,  the  most  in- 
genious human  machinery  ever  invented  to  root  out  and 
destroy  whatever  a  people  had  that  was  intellectually  most 
alert,  inquisitive,  and  progressive  ;  and,  finally  (4) ,  the  policy 
of  extermination,  and,  where  not  of  extermination,  of  cruel 


8 

oppression,  systematically  pursued  towards  the  aborigines  of 
America.  Into  the  grounds  on  which  the  different  counts 
of  this  indictment  rest  it  would  be  impossible  now  to  enter. 
Were  it  desirable  so  to  do,  time  would  not  permit.  Suffice  it 
to  say,  the  penalty  had  to  be  paid  to  the  uttermost  farthing  ; 
and  one  large  instalment  fell  due,  and  was  mercilessly  exacted, 
during  the  year  now  drawing  to  its  close.  Spanish  domina- 
tion in  America  ceased, —  the  drama  ended  as  it  was  entering 
on  its  fifth  century, —  and  it  can  best  be  dismissed  with  the 
solemn  words  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  uttered  more  than  thirty 
years  ago,  when  contemplating  a  similar  expiation  we  were 
ourselves  paying  in  blood  and  grief  for  a  not  dissimilar  viola- 
tion of  an  everlasting  law,  — ' '  Yet,  if  God  wills  that  this 
mighty  scourge  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the 
bondsmen's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil 
shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  by  the 
lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  by  the  sword,  as  was  said 
three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  '  The 
judgments  of  the  L,ord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether !  '  " 

But  not  only  is  this  year  memorable  as  witnessing  the 
downfall  and  complete  extirpation  of  that  Spanish  rule  in 
America  which  began  with  Columbus,  but  the  result,  when  it 
at  last  came  about,  was  marked  by  incidents  more  curiously 
fitting  and  dramatic  than  it  would  have  been  possible  for  a 
Shakspeare  to  have  conceived.  Columbus,  as  we  all  know, 
stumbled,  as  it  were,  on  America  as  he  sailed  west  in  search 
of  Asia,  —  Cipango  he  was  looking  for,  and  he  found  Cuba. 
It  is  equally  well  known  that  he  never  discovered  his  mistake. 
When  fourteen  years  later  he  died,  it  was  in  the  faith  that, 
through  him,  Europe  had  by  a  westward  movement  estab- 
lished itself  in  the  archipelagoes  of  Asia.  And  now,  at  last, 
four  centuries  afterward,  the  blow  which  did  most  to  end  the 
American  domination  he  established  was  struck  in  Asiatic 
waters  ;  and,  through  it  and  the  descendants  of  another  race, 
America  seems  on  the  threshold  of  realizing  the  mistaken 
belief  of  Columbus,  and  by  a  westward  movement  establish- 
ing the  European  in  that  very  archipelago  Columbus  failed  to 
reach.  The  ways  of  Providence  are  certainly  not  less  singu- 
lar than  slow  in  movement. 

But  the  year  just  ending  was  veritably  one  of  surprises,  — 


for  the  historical  student  it  would,  indeed,  seem  as  if  1898 
was  destined  to  pass  into  the  long  record  as  almost  the  Year 
of  Surprises.  We  now  come  to  the  consideration  of  some  of 
these  wholly  unanticipated  results  from  the  American  point 
of  view.  And  in  entering  on  this  aspect  of  the  question,  it  is 
necessary  once  more  to  remind  you  that  we  are  doing  it  in  the 
historical  spirit,  and  from  the  historical  point  of  view.  We 
are  stating  facts  not  supposed  to  admit  of  denial.  The  argu- 
ment and  inferences  to  be  drawn  from  those  facts  do  not  belong 
to  this  occasion.  Some  will  reach  one  conclusion  as  to  the 
future,  and  the  bearing  those  facts  have  upon  its  probable 
development,  and  some  will  reach  another  conclusion  ;  with 
these  conclusions  we  have  nothing  to  do.  Our  business  is 
exclusively  with  the  facts. 

Speaking  largely,  but  still  with  all  necessary  historical 
accuracy,  America  has  been  peopled,  and  its  development, 
up  to  the  present  time,  worked  out  through  two  great  stocks 
of  the  European  family, — the  Spanish-speaking  stock,  and 
the  English-speaking  stock.  In  their  development  these  two 
have  pursued  lines,  clearly  marked,  but  curiously  divergent. 
Leaving  the  Spanish-speaking  branch  out  of  the  discussion,  as 
unnecessary  to  it,  it  may  without  exaggeration  be  said  of  the 
English-speaking  branch  that,  from  the  beginning  down  to 
this  year  now  ending,  its  development  has  been  one  long  pro- 
test against,  and  divergence  from,  Old  World  methods  and 
ideals.  In  the  case  of  those  descended  from  the  Forefathers, 
—  as  we  always  designate  the  Plymouth  colony, — this  has 
been  most  distinctly  marked,  ethnically,  politically,  indus- 
trially. 

America  was  the  sphere  where  the  European,  as  a  colonist, 
a  settler,  first  came  on  a  large  scale  in  contact  with  another 
race.  Heretofore,  in  the  Old  World,  when  one  stock  had 
overrun  another,  —  and  history  presented  many  examples  of 
it,  —  the  invading  stock,  after  subduing,  and  to  a  great 
extent  driving  out,  the  stock  which  had  preceded  in  the  occu- 
pancy of  a  region,  settled  gradually  down  into  a  common  pos- 
session, and,  in  the  slow  process  of  years,  an  amalgamation 
of  stocks,  more  or  less  complete,  took  place.  In  America, 
with  the  Anglo-Saxon,  and  especially  those  of  the  New  Eng- 
land type,  this  was  not  the  case.  Unlike  the  Frenchman  at 


the  north,  or  the  Spaniard  at  the  south,  the  Anglo-Saxon 
showed  no  disposition  to  ally  himself  with  the  aborigines,  — 
he  evinced  no  faculty  of  dealing  with  inferior  races,  as  they 
are  called,  except  through  a  process  of  extermination. 
Here  in  Massachusetts  this  was  so  from  the  outset.  Nearly 
every  one  here  has  read  L/ongfellow's  poem,  "  The  Court- 
ship of  Miles  Standish,"  and  calls  to  mind  the  short,  sharp 
conflict  between  the  Plymouth  captain  and  the  Indian  chief, 
Pecksuot,  and  how  those  God-fearing  Pilgrims  ruthlessly  put 
to  death  by  stabbing  and  hanging  a  sufficient  number  of  the 
already  plague-stricken  and  dying  aborigines.  That  episode 
occurred  in  April,  1623,  only  a  little  more  than  two  years 
after  the  landing  we  to-night  celebrate,  and  was,  so  far  as 
New  England  is  concerned,  the  beginning  of  a  series  of 
wars  which  did  not  end  until  the  Indian  ceased  to  be  an  ele- 
ment in  our  civilization.  When  John  Robinson,  the  revered 
pastor  of  the  Plymouth  church,  received  tidings  at  I/eyden  of 
that  killing  near  Plymouth, —  for  Robinson  never  got  across 
the  Atlantic, —  he  wrote:  "Oh,  how  happy  a  thing  had  it 
been,  if  you  had  converted  some  before  you  had  killed  any  ! 
There  is  cause  to  fear  that,  by  occasion,  especially  of  provo- 
cation, there  may  be  wanting  that  tenderness  of  the  life  of 
man  (made  after  God's  image)  which  is  meet.  It  is  also  a 
thing  more  glorious  in  men's  eyes,  than  pleasing  in  God's  or 
convenient  for  Christians,  to  be  a  terror  to  poor,  barbarous 
people. ' '  This  all  has  a  very  familiar  sound.  It  is  the  refrain  of 
nearly  three  centuries ;  but,  as  an  historical  fact,  it  is  undeni- 
able that,  from  1623  down  to  the  year  now  ending,  the  Ameri- 
can Anglo-Saxon  has  in  his  dealings  with  what  are  known 
as  the  ' '  inferior  races  ' '  lacked  ' '  that  tenderness  of  the  life 
of  man  which  is  meet,"  and  he  has  made  himself  "a  terror  to 
poor,  barbarous  people."  How  we  of  Massachusetts  carried 
ourselves  towards  the  aborigines  here,  the  fearful  record  of 
the  Pequot  war  remains  everlastingly  to  tell.  How  the 
country  at  large  has  carried  itself  in  turn  towards  Indian, 
African,  and  Asiatic  is  matter  of  history.  And  yet  it  is 
equally  matter  of  history  that  this  carriage,  term  it  what 
you  will,  —  unchristian,  brutal,  exterminating, — has  been 
the  salvation  of  the  race.  It  has  saved  the  Anglo-Saxon 
stock  from  being  a  nation  of  half-breeds,  —  miscegenates,  to 


coin  a  word  expressive  of  an  idea.  The  Canadian  half-breed, 
the  Mexican,  the  mulatto,  say  what  men  may,  are  not  virile 
or  enduring  races  ;  and  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  is  none  of  these, 
and  is  essentially  virile  and  enduring,  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  less  developed  races  perished  before  him.  Nature  is  unde- 
niably often  brutal  in  its  methods. 

Again,  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  Anglo-Saxon  when  he 
came  to  America  left  behind  him,  so  far  as  he  himself  was 
concerned,  feudalism  and  all  things  pertaining  to  caste,  in- 
cluding what  was  then  known  in  England,  and  is  still  known 
in  Germany,  as  Divine  Right.  When  he  at  last  enunciated 
his  political  faith  he  put  in  the  forefront  of  his  declaration  as 
' '  self-evident  truths, ' '  the  principles  "  that  all  men  are  created 
equal ;  ' '  that  they  are  endowed  with  ' '  certain  inalienable 
rights,"  among  them  "  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness ;  ' '  and  that  governments  derived  ' '  their  just  powers  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed."  Now  what  was  meant  here  by 
the  phrase  ' '  all  men  are  created  equal  ?  ' '  We  know  they 
are  not.  They  are  not  created  equal  in  physical  or  mental 
endowment ;  nor  are  they  created  with  equal  opportunity. 
The  world  bristles  with  inequalities,  natural  and  artificial. 
This  is  so  ;  and  yet  the  declaration  is  none  the  less  true  ;  — 
true  when  made ;  true  now ;  true  for  all  future  time.  The 
reference  was  to  the  inequalities  which  always  had  marked, 
then  did,  and  still  do,  mark,  the  political  life  of  the  Old  World, 
—  to  Caste,  Divine  Right,  Privilege.  It  declared  that  all  men 
were  created  equal  before  the  law,  as  before  the  Lord ; x  and 

1 "  Obviously,  men  are  not  born  eqnal  in  physical  strength  or  in  mental  capacity, 
In  beauty  of  form  or  health  of  body.  Diversity  or  inequality  in  these  respects  is  the 
law  of  creation.  But  this  inequality  is  in  no  particular  inconsistent  with  complete 
civil  or  political  equality. 

"The  equality  declared  by  our  fathers  in  1776,  and  made  the  fundamental  law  of 
Massachusetts  in  1780,  was  Equality  before  the  Law.  Its  object  was  to  efface  all  polit- 
ical or  civil  distinctions,  and  to  abolish  all  institutions  founded  upon  birth.  '  All 
men  are  created  equal,'  says  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  'All  men  are  born 
free  and  equal,"  says  the  Massachusetts  Bill  of  Rights.  These  are  not  vain  words. 
Within  the  sphere  of  their  influence,  no  person  can  be  created,  no  person  can  be  born, 
with  civil  or  political  privileges  not  enjoyed  equally  by  all  his  fellow-citizens ;  nor 
can  any  institutions  be  established,  recognizing  distinctions  of  birth.  Here  is  the 
Great  Charter  of  every  human  being  drawing  vital  breath  upon  this  soil,  whatever 
may  be  his  conditions,  and  whoever  may  be  his  parents.  He  may  be  poor,  weak, 
humble,  or  black,  —  he  may  be  of  Caucasian,  Jewish,  Indian,  or  Ethiopian  race, — 
he  may  be  born  of  French,  German,  English,  or  Irish  extraction ;  but  before  the 
Constitution  of  Massachusetts  all  these  distinctions  disappear.  He  is  not  poor, 
weak,  humble,  or  black ;  nor  is  he  Caucasian,  Jew,  Indian,  or  Ethopian ;  nor  is  he 


12 

that,  whether  European,  American,  Asiatic,  or  African,  they 
were  endowed  with  an  inalienable  right  to  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness.  And  to  this  truth,  as  he  saw  it, 
Lincoln  referred  in  those  memorable  words  I  have  already 
cited  bearing  on  our  national  crime  in  long  forgetfulness  of 
our  own  immutable  principles.  The  fundamental,  primal 
principle  was  indeed  more  clearly  voiced  by  Lincoln  than  it 
has  been  voiced  before,  or  since,  in  declaring  again  and  else- 
where that  to  our  nation,  dedicated  "  to  the  proposition  that 
all  men  are  created  equal,"  has  by  Providence  been  assigned 
the  momentous  task  of  ' '  testing  whether  any  nation  so  con- 
ceived and  so  dedicated  can  long  endure,"  and  "  that  govern- 
ment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not 
perish  from  the  earth." 

The  next  cardinal  principle  in  our  policy  as  a  race  —  that 
instinctive  policy  I  have  already  referred  to  as  divergent  from 
Old  World  methods  and  ideals  —  was  most  clearly  enunciated 
by  Washington  in  his  Farewell  Address,  that  ' '  the  great  rule 
for  us  in  regard  to  foreign  nations  is,  in  extending  our  com- 
mercial relations,  to  have  with  them  as  little  political  connec- 
tion as  possible;"  that  it  was  "unwise  in  us  to  implicate 
ourselves  by  artificial  ties  in  the  ordinary  vicissitudes  of  [Old 
World]  policies,  or  the  ordinary  combinations  and  collisions 
of  her  friendships  or  enmities.  Our  detached  and  distant  situ- 
ation invites  and  enables  us  to  pursue  a  different  course.  .  .  . 
Taking  care  always  to  keep  ourselves  by  suitable  establish- 
ments on  a  respectable  defensive  posture,  we  may  safely  trust 
to  temporary  alliances  for  extraordinary  emergencies." 

Accepting  this  as  firm  ground  from  which  to  act,  we  after- 
wards put  forth  what  is  known  as  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  Hav- 
ing announced  that  our  purpose  was,  in  homely  language,  to 
mind  our  own  business,  we  warned  the  outer  world  that  we 
did  not  propose  to  permit  by  that  outer  world  any  interference 
in  what  did  not  concern  it.  America  was  our  field,  —  a  field 
amply  large  for  our  development.  It  was  therefore  declared 

French,  German,  English,  or  Irish;  he  is  a  MAN,  the  equal  of  all  his  fellow-men. 
He  is  one  of  the  children  of  the  State,  which,  like  an  impartial  parent,  regards  all  its 
offspring  with  an  equal  care.  To  some  it  may  justly  allot  higher  duties,  according 
to  higher  capacities  ;  but  it  welcomes  all  to  its  equal  hospitable  board.  The  State, 
imitating  the  divine  justice,  is  no  respecter  of  persons."—  Works  of  Charles  Sumner, 

Vol.  II.,  PP.  34T-2. 


13 

that,  while  we  had  never  taken  any  part,  nor  did  it  comport 
with  our  policy  to  do  so,  in  the  wars  of  European  politics, 
with  the  movements  in  this  hemisphere  we  are,  of  necessity, 
more  intimately  connected.  "  We  owe  it,  therefore,  to  candor 
to  declare  that  we  should  consider  any  attempt  [on  the  part 
of  European  powers]  to  extend  their  system  to  any  portion  of 
this  hemisphere  as  dangerous  to  our  peace  and  safety." 

On  these  principles  of  government  and  of  foreign  policy  we 
have  as  a  people  now  acted  for  more  than  seventy  years. 
They  have  been  exemplified  and  developed  in  various  direc- 
tions, and  resulted  in  details  —  commercial,  economic,  and 
ethnic — which  have  given  rise  to  political  issues,  long  and 
hotly  contested,  but  which,  in  their  result  from  the  purely 
historical  point  of  view,  do  not  admit  of  dispute.  Commer- 
cially, we  have  adopted  what  is  known  as  a  system  protective 
both  of  our  industries  and  our  labor.  Economically,  we 
have  carefully  eschewed  large  and  costly  armaments,  and 
expensive  governmental  methods.  Ethnically,  we  have 
avowed  our  desire  to  have  as  little  contact  as  possible  with 
less  developed  races,  lamenting  the  presence  of  the  African, 
and  severely  excluding  the  Asiatic.  These  facts,  whether  we 
as  individuals  and  citizens  wholly  approve  —  or  do  not  ap- 
prove at  all  —  of  the  course  pursued  and  the  results  reached, 
admit  of  no  dispute.  Neither  can  it  be  denied  that  our  atti- 
tude, whether  it  in  all  respects  commanded  the  respect  of 
foreign  nations,  or  failed  to  command  it,  was  accepted,  and 
has  prevailed.  Striking  illustrations  of  this  at  once  suggest 
themselves. 

In  one  respect  especially  was  our  attitude  peculiar,  and  in 
its  peculiarity  we  took  great  pride.  It  was  largely  moral; 
but,  though  largely  moral,  it  had  behind  it  the  consciousness 
of  strength  in  ourselves,  and  its  recognition  by  others.  In 
great  degree,  and  relatively,  an  unarmed  people,  we  looked 
with  amaze,  which  had  in  it  something  of  amusement,  at  the 
constantly  growing  armaments  and  war  budgets  of  the  nations 
of  Europe.  We  saw  them,  like  the  warriors  of  the  middle  ages, 
crushed  under  the  weight  of  their  weapons  of  offence,  and  their 
preparations  for  defence.  Meanwhile,  fortunate  in  our  geo- 
graphical position, —  weak  for  offence,  but,  in  turn,  unassail- 
able,—  we  went  in  and  out  much  as  an  unarmed  man, 


relying  on  his  character,  his  recognized  force,  position,  and 
peaceful  calling,  daily  moves  about  in  our  frontier  settle- 
ments and  mining  camps  amid  throngs  of  men  armed  to 
the  teeth  with  revolvers  and  bowie  knives.  Yet,  evidence 
was  not  lacking  of  the  consideration  yielded  to  us  when  we 
were  called  upon,  or  felt  called  upon,  to  assert  ourselves.  I 
will  not  refer  to  the  episode  of  1866,  when,  in  accordance 
with  the  principles  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  we  intimated  to 
France  that  her  immediate  withdrawal  from  Mexico  was 
desired ;  for  then  we  had  not  laid  down  the  arms  we  had 
taken  up  in  the  Rebellion.  But,  without  remonstrance  even, 
France  withdrew.  In  1891,  under  circumstances  not  with- 
out grounds  of  aggravation  against  us,  a  mob  in  Valparaiso 
assaulted  some  seamen  from  our  ships  of  war.  Instant 
apology  and  redress  were  demanded ;  and  the  demand  was 
complied  with.  Yet  later,  the  course  pursued  by  us  in  the 
Venezuela  matter  is  too  fresh  in  memory  to  call  for  more  than 
a  reference.  These  are  all  matters  of  history.  When  did  our 
word  fail  to  carry  all  desired  weight  ? 

Such  were  our  standing,  our  traditional  policy,  and  our 
record  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  now  ending.  No  propo- 
sition advanced  admits,  it  is  believed,  of  dispute  historically. 
Into  the  events  of  the  year  1898  it  is  not  necessary  to  enter 
in  any  detail.  They  are  in  the  minds  of  all.  It  is  sufficient 
to  say  that  the  primary  object  for  which  we  entered  upon  the 
late  war  with  Spain  was  to  bring  to  an  end  the  long,  and 
altogether  bad  record  of  Spanish  rule  in  America.  In  taking 
the  steps  deemecl  "necessary  to  effect  tnis  "result ,|  Congress 
went  out  of  its  way,  and  publicly  and  formally  put  upon 
record  its  disclaimer  of  any  intention  to  enter  upon  a  war  of 
conquest,  asserting  its  determination,  when  Spanish  domi- 
nation was  ended,  to  leave  the  government  of  Cuba,  and 
presumably  of  any  other  islands  similarly  acquired,  to  the 
people  thereof.  As  an  incident  to  our  naval  operations  on 
the  Pacific,  the  island  of  Hawaii  was  then  annexed  to  the 
United  States  as  an  extra-territorial  possession,  or  coaling 
station,  this  being  effected  by  a  joint  resolution  of  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress,!  under  the  precedent  of  1845  established 
in  the  case  of  Texas,  —  a  method  of  procedure  the  constitu- 
tionality of  which  was  at  the  time  formally  called  in  question 


15 

by  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  and  against  which  Mr.  Web- 
ster made  vigorous  protest  in  the  Senate.  In  thus  possessing 
ourselves  of  Hawaii,  the  consent  of  the  native  inhabitants  was 
not  considered  necessary ;  we  dealt  wholly  with  an  oligarchi- 
cal de  facto  government,  representing  the  foreign  element, 
mainly  American,  there  resident. 

Shortly  after  the  acquisition  of  Hawaii,  we,  as  the  result 
of  brilliant  naval  operations  and  successes,  acquired  posses- 
sion of  the  harbor  of  Manila,  in  the  Philippine  archipelago, 
and  finally  the  city  and  some  adjacent  territory  were  surren- 
dered to  us.  A  treaty  was  then  negotiated,  the  power  of 
Spain  being  completely  broken,  under  which  she  abandoned 
all  claims  of  sovereignty,  not  only  over  the  island  of  Cuba, 
the  original  cause  of  war,  but  over  various  other  islands  in 
the  Philippine,  as  well  as  in  the  West  Indian,  archipelagoes. 
These  islands,  in  all  said  to  be  some  1,200  to  1,500  in  number, 
are  moreover  not  only  inhabited  by  both  natives  and  for- 
eigners to  the  estimated  number  of  ten  to  twelve  million  of 
souls,  but  they  contain  large  cities  and  communities  speaking 
different  tongues,  living  under  other  laws,  and  having  cus- 
toms, manners,  and  traditions  wholly  unlike  our  own,  and 
which,  in  the  case  of  the  Philippines,  do  not  admit  of  assimi- 
lation. Situated  in  the  tropics,  also,  they  cannot  gradually 
become  colonized  by  Americans,  with  or  without  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  native  population.  The  American  can  only 
go  there  for  temporary  residence. 

A  wholly  new  problem  was  thus  suddenly  presented  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  asserted 
that,  by  destroying  Spanish  government  in  these  islands,  the 
United  States  has  assumed  responsibility  for  them,  both  to 
the  inhabitants  and  to  the  world.  This  is  a  moral  obligation. 
On  the  other  hand,  trade  and  commercial  inducements  are 
held  out  which  would  lead  us  to  treat  these  islands  simply  as 
a  commencement  —  the  first  instalment  —  in  a  system  of  un- 
limited extra-territorial  dependencies  and  imperial  expansion. 
With  these  responsibilities  and  obligations  we  here  this  even- 
ing have  nothing  to  do,  any  more  than  we  have  to  do  with 
the  expediency  or  probable  results  of  the  policy  of  colonial 
expansion,  when  once  fairly  adopted  and  finally  entered  upon. 
These  hereafter  will  be,  but  are  not  yet,  historical  questions ; 


i6 

and  we  are  merely  historical  inquirers.  We,  therefore,  no 
matter  what  others  may  do,  must  try  to  confine  ourselves  to 
our  own  proper  business  and  functions. 

My  purpose,  therefore,  is  not  to  argue  for  or  against  what 
is  now  proposed,  but  simply  to  test  historically  some  of  the 
arguments  I  have  heard  most  commonly  advanced  in  favor 
of  the  proposed  policy  of  expansion,  and  thus  see  to  what 
they  apparently  lead  in  the  sequence  of  human,  and  more 
especially  of  American,  events.  Do  they  indicate  an  his- 
toric continuity  ?  Or  do  they  result  in  what  is  geologically 
known  as  a  "fault," — a  movement,  as  the  result  of  force, 
through  which  a  stratum,  once  continuous,  becomes  discon- 
nected ? 

In  the  first  place,  then,  as  respects  the  inhabitants  of  the 
vastly  greater  number  of  the  dependencies  already  acquired, 
and,  under  the  policy  of  imperialistic  expansion,  hereafter  to 
be  acquired.  \  It  is  argued  that  we,  as  a  people  at  once 
dominant  and  Christian,  are  under  an  obligation  to  avail 
"-•  ourselves  of  the  opportunity  the  Almighty,  in  his  infinite 
wisdom,  has  thrust  upon  us,  —  some  say  the  plain  call  he 
_has  uttered  to  us,  — to  go  forth  and  impart  to  the  barbarian 
and  the  heathen  the  blessings  of  liberty  and  the  Bible\  A 
mission  is  imposed  upon  us.  Viewed  in  the  cold,  pitiless 
light  of  history,  — and  that  is  the  only  way  we  here  can  view 
them,  —  "divine  missions"  and  "providential  calls"  are 
questionable  things ;  things  the  assumption  and  fulfilment 
of  which  are  apt  to  be  at  variance.  So  far  as  the  American 
is  concerned,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  the  historic 
precedents  are  not  encouraging.  Whatever  his  theories, 
ethnical,  political,  or  religious,  his  practice  has  been  as 
pronounced  as  it  was  masterful.  From  the  earliest  days  at 
Wessagusset  and  in  the  Pequot  war,  down  to  the  very  last 
election  held  in  North  Carolina,  —  from  1623  to  1898, — fthe 
knife  and  the  shotgun  have  been  far  more  potent  and  active 
instruments  in  his  dealings  with  the  inferior  races  than  the 
code  of  liberty  or  the  output  of  the  Bible  Society.  |  The 
record  speaks  for  itself.  So  far  as  the  Indian  is  concerned, 
the  story  has  been  told  by  Mrs.  Jackson  in  her  earnest, 
eloquent  protest,  entitled  "  A  Century  of  Dishonor."  It  has 
received  epigrammatic  treatment  in  the  saying  tersely  enunci- 


17 

ated  by  one  of  our  military  commanders,  and  avowedly 
accepted  by  the  others,  that  "the  only  good  Indian  is  a 
dead  Indian."  So  far  as  the  African  is  concerned,  the 
similar  apothegm  once  was  that  ' '  the  black  man  has  no 
rights  the  white  man  is  bound  to  respect ;  "  or,  as  Stephen 
A.  Douglas  defined  his  position  before  an  applauding  audi- 
ence, "  I  am  for  the  white  man  as  against  the  black  man, 
and  for  the  black  man  against  the  alligator."  Recent  lynch- 
ing and  shotgun  experiences,  too  fresh  in  memory  to  call  for 
reminder,  and  too  painful  in  detail  to  describe,  give  us  at 
least  reason  to  pause  before  we  leave  our  own  hearthstone 
to  seek  new  and  distant  fields  for  missionary  labors.  It 
remains  to  consider  the  Asiatic.  The  racial  antipathy  of  the 
American  towards  him  has  been  more  intense  than  towards 
any  other  species  of  the  human' race.  This,  as  an  historical 
fact,  has  been  recently  imbedded  in  our  statute-book,  having 
previously  been  illustrated  in  a  series  of  outrages  and  mas- 
sacres, with  the  sickening  details  of  some  of  which  it  was  at 
one  time  my  misfortune  to  be  officially  familiar.  Under  these 
circumstances,  so  far  as  the  circulation  of  the  Bible  and  the 
extension  of  the  blessings  of  liberty  are  concerned,  history 
affords  small  encouragement  to  the  American  to  assume  new 
obligations.  He  has  been,  and  now  is,  more  than  merely 
delinquent  in  the  fulfilment  of  obligations  heretofore  thrust 
upon  him,  or  knowingly  assumed.  In  this  respect  his  instinct 
has  proved  much  more  of  a  controlling  factor  than  his  ethics, 
—  the  shotgun  has  unfortunately  been  more  constantly  in 
evidence  than  the  Bible.  As  a  prominent  ' '  expansionist ' ' 
New  England  member  of  the  present  Congress  has  recently 
declared  in  language,  brutal  perhaps  in  directness,  but 
withal  commendably  free  from  cant :  ' '  China  is  succumbing 
to  the  inevitable,  and  the  United  States,  if  she  would  not 
retire  to  the  background,  must  advance  along  the  line  with 
the  other  great  nations.  She  must  acquire  new  territory, 
providing  new  markets  over  which  she  must  maintain  control. 
The  Anglo-Saxon  advances  into  the  new  regions  with  a  Bible 
in  one  hand  and  a  shotgun  in  the  other.  The  inhabitants  of 
those  regions  that  he  cannot  convert  with  the  aid  of  the 
Bible  and  bring  into  his  markets,  he  gets  rid  of  with  the 
shotgun.  It  is  but  another  demonstration  of  the  survival  of 


18 

the  fittest."      (Hon.   C.   A.    Sulloway,    Rochester,    N.    H., 
Nov.  22,  1898.) 

|  Next  as  regards  our  fundamental  principles  of  equality  of 
human  rights,  and  the  consent  of  the  governed  as  the  only 
just  basis  of  all  government.!  The  presence  of  the  inferior 
races  on  our  own  soil,  and  our  new  problems  connected  with 
them  in  our  dependencies,  have  led  to  much  questioning  of 
the  correctness  of  those  principles,  which,  for  its  outspoken 
frankness,  at  least,  is  greatly  to  be  commended.  It  is  argued 
that  these,  as  principles,  in  the  light  of  modern  knowledge 
and  conditions,  are  of  doubtful  general  truth  and  limited 
application.  |  True,  when  confined  and  carefully  applied  to 
citizens  of  the  same  blood  and  nationality  ;  questionable, 
when  applied  to  human  beings  of  different  race  in  one  nation- 
ality ;  manifestly  false,  in  the  case  of  races  less  developed,  and 
in  other,  especially  tropical,  countries.1!  As  fundamental  prin- 

1  Historically  speaking,  the  assertion  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  has 
been  fruitful  of  dispute.  The  very  evening  the  present  paper  was  read  at  Lexing- 
ton the  Mayor  of  Boston,  in  a  public  address  elsewhere,  alluded  to  the  "  imprudent 
generalizations  of  our  forefathers,"  referring,  doubtless,  to  what  Rufus  Choate, 
forty-two  years  before,  described  as  "  the  glittering  and  sounding  generalities  of 
natural  right"  to  be  found  in  the  Declaration,  "that  passionate  and  eloquent 
manifesto."  Mr.  Calhoun  declared  (1848)  that  the  claim  of  human  equality  set  forth 
in  the  Declaration  was  "  the  most  false  and  dangerous  of  all  political  errors," 
which,  after  resting  a  long  time  "dormant,"  had,  in  process  of  time,  begun  "to 
germinate  and  produce  its  poisonous  fruits."  Mr.  Pettit,  a  Senator  from  Indiana, 
pronounced  it  in  1854,  "a  self-evident  lie."  In  the  famous  Lincoln-Douglas  debate 
in  Illinois  (1860)  the  question  reappeared,  Mr.  Douglas  contending  that  the  Declara- 
tion applied  only  to  "the  white  people  of  the  United  States;  "  while  Mr.  Lincoln, 
in  reply,  asserted  that  "the  entire  records  of  the  world,  from  the  date  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  up  to  within  three  years  ago,  may  be  searched  in  vain 
for  one  single  affirmation,  from  one  single  man,  that  the  negro  was  not  included  in 
the  Declaration."  The  contention  of  Mr.  Douglas  had  recently  again  made  its 
appearance  in  the  press  as  something  too  indisputable  to  admit  of  discussion.  It  is 
asserted  that,  in  penning  the  Declaration,  Mr.  Jefferson  could  not  possibly  have 
intended  to  include  those  then  actually  held  as  slaves.  On  this  point  Mr.  Jefferson 
himself  should,  it  would  seem,  be  accepted  as  a  competent  witness.  Referring  to 
the  denial  of  his  " inalienable  rights "  to  the  African,  he  declared  at  a  later  day,  "I 
tremble  for  my  country,  when  I  reflect  that  God  is  just."  What  he  meant  will, 
however,  probably  continue  matter  for  confident  newspaper  assertions  just  so  long 
as  anybody  in  this  country  wants  to  make  out,  as  did  Stephen  A.  Douglas  in  1860,  a 
plausible  pretext  for  subjugating  somebody  else,  —  Indian,  African,  or  Asiatic.  As 
Mr.  Lincoln  expressed  it,  "  The  assertion  that  all  men  are  created  equal  was  of  no 
practical  use  in  effecting  our  separation  from  Great  Britain,  and  it  was  placed  in 
the  Declaration,  not  for  that  but  for  future  use.  Its  author  meant  it  to  be,  as, 
thank  God,  it  is  now  proving  itself,  a  stumbling  block  to  all  those  who,  in  after 
times,  might  seek  to  turn  a  free  people  back  into  the  paths  of  despotism.  They 
knew  the  proneness  of  prosperity  to  breed  tyrants,  and  they  meant,  when  such 
should  reappear  in  this  fair  land,  and  commence  their  vocation,  they  should  find 
left  for  them  at  least  one  hard  nut  to  crack."  —  Works,  Vol.  I.,  p.  233. 


19 

ciples,  it  is  admitted,  they  were  excellent  for  a  young  people 
struggling  into  recognition  and  limiting  its  attention  narrowly 
to  what  only  concerned  itself ;  but  have  we  not  manifestly 
outgrown  them,  now  that  we  ourselves  have  developed  into  ~ 
a  great  World  Power  ?  For  such  there  was  and  necessarily 
always  will  be,  as  between  the  superior  and  the  inferior  races, 
a  manifest  common  senseT foundation  in  caste,  and  in  the  rule 
of  might  when  it  presents  itself  in  the  form  of  what  we  are 
pleased  to  call  Manifest  Destiny.  As  to  government  being 
conditioned  on  the  consent  of  the  governed,  it  is  obviously 
the  bounden  duty  of  the  superior  race  to  hold  the  inferior 
race  in~peacerul  futeTage7"and  protect  it  against  itselfj.  and, 
furthermore,  when  it  comes  to  deciding  the  momentous  ques- 
tion of  what  races  are  superior  and  what  inferior,  what  dom- 
inant and  what  subject,  that  is  of  necessity  a  question  to  be 
settled  between  the  superior  race  and  its  own  conscience ; 
and  one  in  regard  to  the  correct  settlement  of  which  it  indi- 
cates a  tendency  at  once  unpatriotic  and  "pessimistic,"  to 
assume  that  America  could  by  any  chance  decide  otherwise 
than  correctly.  Upon  that  score  we  must  put  implicit 
confidence  in  the  sound  instincts  and  Christian  spirit  of  the 
dominant,  that  is,  the  stronger  race. 

It  is  the  same  with  that  other  fundamental  principle  with 
which  the  name  of  Lexington  is,  from  the  historical  point  of 
view,  so  closely  associated,  —  I  refer,  of  course,  to  the  revolu- 
tionary contention  that  representation  is  a  necessary  adjunct 
to  taxation.  This  principle  also,  it  is  frankly  argued,  we 
have  outgrown,  in  presence  of  our  new  responsibilities ;  and, 
as  between  the  superior  and  inferior  races,  it  is  subject  to 
obvious  limitations.  Here  again,  as  between  the  policy  of 
the  "  Open  Door  "  and  the  Closed-Colonial-Market  policy,  the 
superior  race  is  amenable  to  its  own  conscience  only.  It  will 
doubtless  on  all  suitable  and  convenient  occasions  bear  in 
mind  that  it  is  a  "  Trustee  for  Civilization." 

Finally  ,*as  respects  entangling  foreign  alliances,  and  their 
necessary  consequents,  costly  and  burdensome  armaments 
and  large  standing  armies,  we  are  again  advised  that,  having 
ceased  to  be  children,  we  should  put  away  childish  things. 
Having  become  a  great  World  Power  we  must  become  a 
corresponding  War  Power  V  We  are  assured  by  high  author- 


20 

ity  that,  were  Washington  now  alive,  it  cannot  be  questioned 
he  would  in  all  these  respects  modify  materially  the  views 
expressed  in  the  Farewell  Address,  as  being  obviously  inap- 
plicable to  existing  conditions.  Under  these  circumstances, 
and  in  view  of  the  obligations  we  have  assumed,  the  Presi- 
dent, and  Secretaries  of  War  and  the  Navy,  recommend  an 
establishment  the  annual  cost  of  which  ($200,000,000),  exclu- 
sive of  military  pensions,  is  in  excess  of  the  largest  of  those 
European  War  Budgets,  over  the  crushing  influence  of  which 
we  have  expressed  a  traditional  wonder,  not  unmixed  with 
pity  for  the  unfortunate  tax-payer. 

Historically  speaking,  I  believe  these  are  all  facts,  sus- 
ceptible of  verification.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the 
arguments  developing  obvious  limitations  in  the  application 
of  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  and  the  Constitution  have 
been  avowedly  accepted  by  our  representatives,  or  officially 
incorporated  into  our  domestic  and  foreign  policy.  I  do 
assert  as  an  historical  fact  that  these  arguments  have  been 
advanced,  and  are  meeting,  both  in  Congress  and  with  the 
press,  a  large  degree  of  acceptance.  And  hence  comes  a 
singular  and  most  significant  conclusion  from  which,  histori- 
cally, there  seems  to  be  no  escape.  It  may  or  it  may  not  be 
fortunate  and  right ;  it  may  or  it  may  not  lead  to  beneficent 
future  results ;  it  may  or  it  may  not  contribute  to  the  good 
of  mankind.  Those  questions  belong  elsewhere  than  in  the 
rooms  of  an  historical  society.  Upon  them  we  are  not  called 
to  pass, — they  belong  to  the  politician,  the  publicist,  the 
philosopher,  not  to  us.  But,  as  historical  investigators,  and  so 
observing  the  sequence  of  events,  it  cannot  escape  our  notice 
that  on  every  one  of  the  fundamental  principles  discussed,  — 
whether  ethnic,  economical,  or  political,  — we  abandon  the 
traditional  and  distinctively  American  grounds  and  accept 
those  of  Europe,  and  especially  of  Great  Britain,  which  here- 
tofore we  have  made  it  the  basis  of  our  faith  to  deny  and 
repudiate. 

With  this  startling  proposition  in  mind,  consider  again  the 
several  propositions  advanced ;  and  first,  as  regards  the  so- 
called  inferior  races.  Our  policy  towards  them,  instinctive 
and  formulated,  has  been  either  to  exclude  or  destroy,  or  to 
leave  them  in  the  fullness  of  time  to  work  out  their  own 


21 

destiny,  undisturbed  by  us  ;  fully  believing  that,  in  this  way, 
we  in  the  long  run  best  subserved  the  interests  of  mankind. 
Europe,  and  Great  Britain  especially,  adopted  the  opposite 
policy.  They  held  that  it  was  incumbent  on  the  superior  to 
go  forth  and  establish  dominion  over  the  inferior  race,  and  to 
hold  and  develop  vast  imperial  possessions  and  colonial  de- 
pendencies. They  saw  their  interest  and  duty  in  developing 
systems  of  docile  tutelage  ;  we  sought  our  inspirations  in  the 
rough  school  of  self-government.  Under  this  head  the  result 
then  is  distinct,  clean  cut,  indisputable.  To  this  conclusion 
have  we  come  at  last.  The  Old  World,  Europe  and  Great 
Britain,  were,  after  all,  right,  and  we  of  the  New  World  have 
been  wrong.  From  every  point  of  view,  — religious,  ethnic, 
commercial,  political,  — we  cannot,  it  is  now  claimed,  too  soon 
abandon  our  traditional  position  and  assume  theirs.  Again, 
Europe  and  Great  Britain  have  never  admitted  that  men  were 
created  equal,  or  that  the  consent  of  the  governed  was  a  con- 
dition of  government.  They  have,  on  the  contrary,  emphat- 
ically denied  both  propositions.  We  now  concede  that,  after 
all,  there  was  great  basis  for  their  denial ;  that,  certainly,  it 
must  be  admitted,  our  forefathers  were  hasty  at  least  in  reach- 
ing their  conclusions, —  they  generalized  too  broadly.  We 
do  not  frankly  avow  error,  and  we  still  think  the  assent 
of  the  governed  to  a  government  a  thing  desirable  to  be 
secured,  under  suitable  circumstances  and  with  proper  lim- 
itations; but,  if  it  cannot  conveniently  be  secured,  we  are 
advised  on  New  England  senatorial  authority  that  ' '  the 
consent  of  some  of  the  governed ' '  will  be  sufficient,  we 
ourselves  selecting  those  proper  to  be  consulted.  Thus 
in  such  cases  as  certain  islands  of  the  Antilles,  Hawaii,  and 
the  communities  of  Asia,  we  admit  that,  so  far  as  the  princi- 
ples at  the  basis  of  the  Declaration  are  concerned,  Great 
Britain  was  right,  and  our  ancestors  were,  not  perhaps  wrong, 
but  too  general,  and  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in  their  state- 
ments. To  that  extent,  we  have  outgrown  the  Declaration 
of  1776,  and  have  become  as  wise  now  as  Great  Britain  was 
then.  At  any  rate  we  are  not  above  learning.  As  was  long 
ago  said,  —  "  Only  dead  men  and  idiots  never  change  ;  "  and 
the  people  of  the  United  States  are  nothing  unless  open- 
minded. 


22 

So,  also,  as  respects  the  famous  Boston  "tea-party,"  and 
taxation  without  representation.  Great  Britain  then  affirmed 
this  right  in  the  case  of  colonies  and  dependencies.  Taught 
by  the  lesson  of  our  War  of  Independence,  she  has  since 
abandoned  it.  We  now  take  it  up,  and  are  to-day,  as  one  of 
the  new  obligations  towards  the  heathen -imposed  upon  us  by 
Providence,  formulating  systems  of  imposts  and  tariffs  for  our 
new  dependencies,  wholly  distinct  from  our  own,  and  directly 
inhibited  by  our  constitution,  in  regard  to  which  systems 
those  dependencies  have  no  representative  voice.  They  are 
not  to  be  consulted  as  to  the  kind  of  door,  "open"  or 
"closed,"  behind  which  they  are  to  exist.  In  taking  this 
position  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  we  must  not  also  inciden- 
tally admit  that,  in  the  great  contention  preceding  our  War 
of  Independence,  the  first  armed  clash  of  which  resounded 
here  in  Lexington,  Great  Britain  was  more  nearly  right  than 
the  exponents  of  the  principles  for  which  those  ' '  embattled 
farmers"  contended. 

Again,  consider  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  entangling  foreign 
alliances,  and  the  consequent  and  costly  military  and  naval 
establishments.  The  Monroe  Doctrine  had  two  sides,  the 
abstention  of  the  Old  World  from  interference  in  American 
affairs,  based  on  our  abstention  from  interference  in  the 
affairs  of  the  Old  World.  But  it  is  now  argued  we  have  out- 
grown the  Monroe  Doctrine,  or  at  least  the  latter  branch  of 
it.  It  is  certainly  so  considered  in  Europe  ;  for,  only  a  few 
days  ago,  so  eminent  an  authority  as  Lord  Farrar  exultingly 
exclaimed  in  addressing  the  Cobden  Club,  —  "  America  has 
burned  the  swaddling  clothes  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine."  In- 
deed we  have,  in  discussion  at  least,  gone  far  in  advance  of 
the  mere  burning  of  cast-off  infantile  clothing,  and  alliances 
with  Great  Britain  and  Japan,  as  against  France  and  Russia, 
are  freely  mooted,  with  a  view  to  the  forcible  partition  of 
China,  to  which  we  are  to  be  a  party,  and  of  it  a  beneficiary. 
For  it  is  already  avowed  that  the  Philippines  are  but  a 
' '  stopping-place  ' '  on  the  way  to  the  continent  of  Asia  ;  and 
China,  unlike  Poland,  is  inhabited  by  an  "  inferior  race,"  in 
regard  to  whom,  as  large  possible  consumers  of  surplus  prod- 
ucts, Providence  has  imposed  on  us  obvious  obligations, 
material  as  well  as  benevolent  and  religious,  which  it  would 


23 

be  unlike  ourselves  to  disregard.  It  is  the  mandate  of  duty, 
we  are  told,  —  the  nations  of  Europe  obey  it,  and  can  we  do 
less  than  they  ?  ' '  Isolation  "  it  is  then  argued  is  but  another 
name  for  an  attention  to  one's  own  business  which  may  well 
become  excessive,  and  result  in  selfishness.  It  is  true  that 
the  nations  ol  the  Old  World  have  not  heretofore  erred  con- 
spicuously in  this  respect ;  and  as  the  ' '  Balance  of  Power ' ' 
was  the  word- juggle  with  which  to  conjure  up  wars  and 
armaments  in  the  eighteenth  century,  so  the  ' '  Division  of 
Trade"  may  not  impossibly  prove  the  similar  conjuring  word- 
juggle  of  the  twentieth  century.  Nevertheless,  "isolation" 
is  not  compatible  with  the  policy  of  a  Great  Nation  under  a 
call  to  assert  itself  as  a  World  Power.  Then  follows  the 
familiar  argument  in  favor  of  costly  military  and  naval  es- 
tablishments. But,  upon  this  head  it  is  needless  to  restate  our 
traditional  policy,  —  our  jealousy  as  a  people  of  militarism 
and  large  standing  armies,  to  be  used,  if  occasion  calls,  as  a 
reserve  police.  Our  record  thereon  is  so  plain  that  repetition 
grows  tedious.  The  record  of  Europe,  and  especially  of  Great 
Britain  as  distinguished  from  other  European  powers,  has  been 
equally  plain,  and  is  no  less  indisputable.  In  this  respect, 
also,  always  under  compulsion,  we  now  admit  our  error. 
Costly  armies  are  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  order, 
Heaven's  first  law ;  and  World  Powers  cannot  maintain  peace, 
and  themselves,  without  powerful  navies  and  frequent  coaling 
stations. 

Finally,  even  on  such  matters  as  the  Protective  System  and 
the  encouragement  of  American  Labor,  as  against  the 
"  Pauper  I/abor"  of  Europe  and  of  the  inferior  races,  Great 
Britain  has  for  half  a  century  now  advocated  the  principle  of 
unrestricted  industry  and  free  trade, — that  is  the  "Open 
Door"  policy  logically  carried  to  its  final  results.  We  have 
denied  it,  establishing  what  we  in  time  grew  to  call  the  dis- 
tinctive American  system.  It  is,  however,  now  asserted  that 
"  Trade  follows  the  Flag,"  and  that,  as  respects  dependencies 
at  least,  the  "Open  Door"  policy  is  the  best  policy.  If 
"Trade  follows  the  Flag"  in  dependencies,  and,  by  so  do- 
ing, affords  the  American  producer  all  needful  protection 
and  every  fair  advantage  in  those  dependencies,  it  is  not  at 
once  apparent  why  it  fails  so  to  do  at  home.  Is  it  less  docile 


24 

to  the  flag,  less  in  harmony  with  and  subservient  to  it,  in  the 
United  States,  within  our  own  limits,  than  in  remote  lands 
under  that  flag  beyond  the  seas  ?  And,  if  so,  how  is  such  an 
apparent  anomaly  accounted  for  ?  But  with  this  question  we 
are  not  concerned.  That  problem  is  for  the  economist  to 
solve,  for  in  character  it  is  commercial,  not  historical.  The 
point  with  us  is  that  again,  as  regards  the  "Open  Door," 
—  free  trade  and  no  favor,  so  far  as  all  outside  competition 
is  concerned,  American  labor  and  "pauper"  labor  being 
equally  outside,  —  on  this  long  and  hotly  contested  point,  also, 
England  appears  on  the  face  of  things  to  have  had  after  all 
much  the  best  of  the  argument. 

As  regards  "  Pauper  Labor,"  indeed,  the  reversal  contem- 
plated of  established  policy  in  favor  of  European  methods  is 
specially  noteworthy.  The  labor  of  Asia  is  undeniably  less  well 
paid  even  than  that  of  Europe ;  but  it  is  now  proposed,  by  a 
single  act,  to  introduce  into  our  industrial  system  ten  millions 
of  Asiatics,  either  directly,  or  through  their  products  sold  in 
open  competition  with  our  own ;  or,  if  we  do  not  do  that,  to 
hold  them,  ascribed  to  the  soil  in  a  sort  of  old  Saxon  serfdom, 
with  the  function  assigned  them  of  consuming  our  surplus 
products,  but  without  in  return  sending  us  theirs.  The 
great  counterbalancing  consideration  will  not,  of  course,  be 
forgotten  that,  like  the  English  in  India,  we  also  bestow  on 
them  the  Blessings  of  Liberty  and  the  Bible  ;  provided,  always, 
that  liberty  does  not  include  freedom  to  go  to  the  United 
States,  and  the  Bible  does  include  the  excellent  Old  Time  and 
Old  World  precept  (Coloss.  3:  22),  "Servants,  obey  in  all 
things  your  masters." 

It  is  the  same  in  other  respects.  It  seems  to  be  admitted 
by  the  President,  and  by  the  leading  authorities  on  the  im- 
perialistic policy,  that  it  can  only  be  carried  to  successful 
results  through  the  agency  of  a  distinct  governing  class. 
Accordingly  administration  through  the  agency  of  military 
or  naval  officers  is  strongly  urged  both  by  the  President  and 
by  Captain  Mahan.  Other  advocates  of  the  policy  urge  its 
adoption  on  the  ground,  very  distinctly  avowed,  that  it  will 
necessitate  an  established,  recognized  Civil  Service,  modelled, 
they  add,  on  that  of  Great  Britain.  If,  they  then  argue, 
Great  Britain  can  extend  —  as,  indeed,  she  unquestionably 


25 

has  extended  —  her  system  of  dependencies  all  over  the 
globe,  developing  them  into  the  most  magnificent  empire  the 
world  ever  saw,  it  is  absurd,  unpatriotic,  and  pessimistic  to 
doubt  that  we  can  do  the  same.  Are  we  not  of  the  same 
blood,  and  the  same  speech?  This  is  all  historically  true. 
Historically  it  is  equally  true  that,  to  do  it,  we  must  em- 
ploy means  similar  to  those  Great  Britain  has  employed.  In 
other  words,  modelling  ourselves  on  Great  Britain,  we  must 
slowly  and  methodically  develop  and  build  up  a  recognized 
and  permanent  governing  and  official  class.  The  heathen 
and  barbarian  need  to  be  studied,  and  dealt  with  intelligently 
and  on  a  system ;  they  cannot  be  successfully  managed  on 
any  principle  of  rotation  in  office,  much  less  one  which  as- 
cribes the  spoils  of  office  to  the  victors  at  the  polls.  What 
these  advocates  of  Imperialism  say  is  unquestionably  true: 
The  political  methods  now  in  vogue  in  American  cities  are 
not  adapted  to  the  government  of  dependencies. 

The  very  word  "  Imperial  "  is,  indeed,  borrowed  from  the 
Old  World.  As  applied  to  a  great  system  of  colonial  dominion 
and  foreign  dependencies  it  is  English,  and  very  modern  Eng- 
lish, also,  for  it  was  first  brought  into  vogue  by  the  late  Earl 
of  Beaconsfield  in  1879,  when,  by  Act  of  Parliament  introduced 
by  him,  the  Queen  of  England  was  made  Empress  of  India. 
It  was  then  he  enunciated  that  doctrine  of  imperium  et  liber- 
tas,  the  adoption  of  which  we  are  now  considering.  While  it 
may  be  wise  and  sound,  it  indisputably  is  British. 

Thus,  curiously  enough,  whichever  way  we  turn  and 
however  we  regard  it,  at  the  close  of  more  than  a  century  of 
independent  existence  we  find  ourselves,  historically  speaking, 
involved  in  a  mesh  of  contradictions  with  our  past.  Under  a 
sense  of  obligation,  impelled  by  circumstances,  perhaps  to 
a  degree  influenced  by  ambition  and  commercial  greed,  we 
have  one  by  one  abandoned  our  distinctive  national  tenets,  ~" 
and  accepted  in  their  place,  though  in  some  modified  forms,  - 
the  old-time  European  tenets  and  policies,  which  we  supposed 
the  world,  actuated  largely  by  our  example,  was  about  forever 
to  discard.  Our  whole  record  as  a  people  is,  of  course,  then 
ransacked  and  subjected  to  microscopic  investigation,  and 
every  petty  disregard  of  principle,  any  wrong  heretofore 
silently,  perhaps  sadly,  ignored,  each  unobserved  or  disre- 


26 

garded  innovation  of  the  past,  is  magnified  into  a  precedent 
justifying  anything  and  everything  in  the  future.  If  we 
formerly  on  some  occasion  swallowed  a  gnat,  why  now,  is  it 
asked,  strain  at  a  camel?  Truths  once  accepted  as  "self- 
evident,"  since  become  awkward  of  acceptance,  were  ever 
thus  pettifogged  out  of  the  path,  and  fundamental  principles 
have  in  this  way  prescriptively  been  tampered  with.  It  is 
now  nearly  a  century  and  a  quarter  ago,  when  Great  Britain 
was  contemplating  the  subjection  of  her  American  dependen- 
cies, that  Edmund  Burke  denounced  ' '  tampering  ' '  with  the 
"ingenuous  and  noble  roughness  of  truly  constitutional 
materials,"  as  "the  odious  vice  of  restless  and  unstable 
minds."  Historically  speaking  it  is  not  unfair  to  ask  if  this 
is  less  so  in  the  United  States  in  1898  than  it  was  in  Great 
Britain  in  1775. 

What  is  now  proposed,  therefore,  examined  in  connection 
with  our  principles  and  traditional  policy  as  a  nation,  does 
apparently  indicate  a  break  in  continuity,  — historically,  it  will 
probably  constitute  what  is  known  in  geology  as  a  "  fault. ' ' 
Indeed,  it  is  almost  safe  to  say  that  history  hardly  records 
any  change  of  base  and  system  on  the  part  of  a  great  people 
at  once  so  sudden,  so  radical,  and  so  pregnant  with  conse- 
quences. To  the  optimist, —  he  who  has  no  dislike  to  "Old 
Jewry,"  as  the  proper  receptacle  for  worn-out  garments,  per- 
sonal or  political, —  the  outlook  is  inspiring.  He  insensibly 
recalls  and  repeats  those  fine  lines  of  Tennyson  : 

"To-day  I  saw  the  dragon-fly 
Come  from  the  wells  where  he  did  lie. 

"An  inner  impulse  rent  the  veil 
Of  his  old  husk :  from  head  to  tail 
Came  out  clear  plates  of  sapphire  mail. 

"  He  dried  his  wings :  like  gauze  they  grew  : 
Thro'  crofts  and  pastures  wet  with  dew 
A  living  flash  of  light  he  flew." 

To  others,  older  perhaps,  but  at  any  rate  more  deeply  im- 
pressed with  the  difference  apt  to  develop  between  dreams 
and  actualities,  the  situation  calls  to  mind  a  comparison, 
more  historical  it  is  true,  but  less  inspiriting  so  far  as  a  com- 
mitment to  the  new  policy  is  concerned.  At  the  risk,  possi- 


27 

bly,  of  offending  some  of  those  present,  I  will  venture  to 
institute  it.  In  the  fourth  chapter  of  the  Gospel  according  to 
St.  Matthew,  I  find  this  incident  recorded:  "The  devil 
taketh  him  [the  Saviour]  up  into  an  exceeding  high  mountain, 
and  showeth  him  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world,  and  the 
glory  of  them ;  and  saith  unto  him,  All  these  things  will  I 
give  thee,  if  thou  wilt  fall  down  and  worship  me.  Then  saith 
Jesus  unto  him,  Get  thee  hence,  Satan.  Then  the  devil  leaveth 
him,  and,  behold,  angels  came  and  ministered  unto  him." 
Now,  historically  speaking,  and  as  a  matter  of  scriptural  exe- 
gesis, that  this  passage  should  be  accepted  literally  is  not 
supposable.  Satan,  on  the  occasion  referred  to,  must  not  be 
taken  to  have  presented  himself  to  the  Saviour  in  propriA 
fiersond,  with  his  attributes  of  horns,  tail,  and  cloven  hoof,  and 
made  an  outright  proposition  of  extra-territorial  sovereignty. 
It  was  a  parable.  He  who  had  assumed  a  lofty  moral  attitude 
was  tempted  by  worldly  inducements  to  adopt  a  lower  attitude, 

—  that,  in  a  word,  common  among  men.     It  was  a  whisper- 
ing to  Christ  of  what   among  nations,  is  known  as  "  Manifest 
Destiny  ;  "  in  that  case,  however,  as  possibly  in  others,  it  so 
chanced  that  the  whispering  was  not  from  the  Almighty,  but 
from  Satan.    Now  if,  instead  of  recognizing  the  source  whence 
the  temptation  came,  and  sternly  saying,  "Get  thee  hence, 
Satan,"  Christ  had  seen  the  proposition  as  a  new  Mission, — 
thought,  in  fact,  that  he  heard  a  distinct  call  to  Duty,  — and 
so,  accepting  a  Responsibility  thrust  upon  him,  had  hurried 
down  from  the  "  exceeding  high  mountain,"  and  proceeded  at 
once  to  lay  in  a  supply  of  weapons  and  to  don  defensive  armor, 
renouncing  his  peaceful  mission,  he  would  have  done  exactly 

—  what  Mohammed  did  six  centuries  later  ! 

I  do  not  for  a  moment  mean  to  suggest  that,  as  respects  the 
voice  of  "  Manifest  Destiny,"  there  is  any  similarity  between 
the  case  of  the  Saviour  and  that  which  we,  as  a  people,  are 
now  considering.  I  am  not  a  prophet,  nor  do  I  claim  pro- 
phetic insight.  We  are  merely  historical  investigators,  and, 
as  such,  not  admitted  into  the  councils  of  the  Almighty. 
Others  doubtless  are,  or  certainly  claim  to  be.  They  know 
every  time,  and  at  once,  whether  it  is  the  inspiration  of  God 
or  the  devil ;  and  forthwith  proclaim  it  from  the  house-tops. 
We  must  admit  —  at  any  rate  no  evidence  in  our  possession 


28 

enables  us  to  deny  —  the  confidential  relations  such  claim  to 
have  with  either  or  both  of  the  agencies  in  question, — the 
Divine  or  the  Infernal.  All  I  now  have  in  mind  is  to  call 
attention  to  the  obvious  similarity  of  the  positions.  As  com- 
pared with  the  ideals  and  tenets  then  in  vogue,  — principles 
of  manhood, 'equality  before  the  law,  freedom,  peace  on  earth 
and  good-will  to  men,  —  the  United  States,  heretofore  and  seen 
in  a  large  way,  has,  among  nations,  assumed  a  peculiar,  and, 
from  the  moral  point  of  view,  unquestionably  a  lofty  attitude. 
Speaking  historically  it  might,  and  with  no  charge  of  levity, 
be  compared  with  a  similar  moral  attitude  assumed  among 
men  eighteen  centuries  before  by  the  Saviour.  It  discoun- 
tenanced armaments  and  warfare ;  it  advocated  arbitrations, 
and  bowed  to  their  awards  ;  spreading  its  arms  and  protection 
over  the  New  World,  it  refused  to  embroil  itself  in  the 
complications  of  the  Old;  above  all,  it  set  a  not  unprofit- 
able example  to  the  nations  of  benefits  incident  to  mind- 
ing one's  own  business,  and  did  not  arrogate  to  itself 
the  character  of  a  favorite  and  inspired  instrument  in  the 
hands  of  God.  It  even  went  so  far  as  to  assume  that,  in 
working  out  the  inscrutable  ways  of  Providence,  character, 
self-restraint,  and  moral  grandeur  were  in  the  long  run  as 
potent  in  effecting  results  as  iron-clads  and  gatling-guns. 

Those  who  now  advocate  a  continuance  of  this  policy  are, 
as  neatly  as  wittily,  referred  to  in  discussion,  "  for  want  of  a 
better  name,"  as  "  I/ittle  Americans,"  just  as  in  history  the 
believers  in  the  long-run  efficacy  of  the  doctrines  of  Christ 
might  be  termed  "  L,ittle  Gospellers,"  to  distinguish  them 
from  the  admirers  of  the  later,  but  more  brilliant  and  imperial, 
dispensation  of  Mohammed.  That  the  earlier,  and  less  im- 
mediately ambitious,  doctrine  was,  in  the  case  of  the  United 
States,  only  temporary,  and  is  now  outgrown,  and  must, 
therefore,  be  abandoned  in  favor  of  Old  World  methods,  es- 
pecially those  pursued  with  such  striking  'success  by  Great 
Britain,  is  possible.  As  historical  investigators  we  have  long 
since  learned  that  it  is  the  unexpected  which  in  the  devel- 
opment of  human  affairs  is  most  apt  to  occur.  Who,  for 
instance,  in  our  own  recent  history  could  ever  have  foreseen 
that,  in  the  inscrutable  ways  of  the  Almighty,  the  great  tri- 
umph of  Slavery  in  the  annexation  of  Texas,  and  the  spolia- 


29 

tion  of  that  inferior  race  which  inhabited  Mexico,  was,  within 
fifteen  years  only,  to  result  in  what  Lincoln  called  that 
4 '  terrible  war ' '  in  which  every  drop  of  blood  ever  drawn 
by  the  lash  was  paid  by  another  drawn  by  the  sword  ? 
Again,  in  May,  1856,  a  Representative  of  South  Carolina 
struck  down  a  Senator  from  Massachusetts  in  the  Senate- 
chamber  at  Washington;  in  January,  1865,  Massachusetts 
battalions  bivouacked  beside  the  smoking  ruins  of  South 
Carolina's  capital.  Verily,  as  none  know  better  than  we,  the 
ways  of  Providence  are  mysterious,  and  past  finding  out. 
None  the  less,  though  it  cannot  be  positively  asserted  that 
the  world  would  not  have  been  wiser,  more  advanced,  and 
better  ordered  had  Christ,  when  on  that  "  exceeding  high 
mountain,"  heard  in  the  words  then  whispered  in  his  ear  a 
manifest  call  of  Duty,  and  felt  a  Responsibility  thrust  upon 
him  to  secure  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  for  the  Blessings  of 
Liberty  and  the  Bible  by  so  small  a  sacrifice  as  making  an  ap- 
parently meaningless  obeisance  to  Satan,  yet  we  can  cer- 
tainly say  that  the  world  would  now  have  been  very  different 
from  what  it  is  had  he  so  done.  And  so  in  the  case  of  the 
United  States,  though  we  cannot  for  a  moment  assert  that 
its  fate  and  the  future  of  the  world  will  not  be  richer,  better, 
and  brighter  from  its  abandonment  of  New  World  traditions 
and  policies  in  favor  of  the  traditions  and  policies  of  the  Old 
World,  we  can  say  without  any  hesitation  that  the  course  of 
history  will  be  greatly  changed  by  the  so  doing. 

In  any  event  the  experiment  will  be  one  of  surpassing 
interest  to  the  historical  observer.  Some  years  ago  James 
Russell  Lowell  was  asked  by  the  French  historian,  Guizot, 
how  long  the  Republic  of  the  United  States  might  reasonably 
be  expected  to  endure.  Mr.  Lowell's  reply  has  always  been 
considered  peculiarly  happy.  "So  long,"  said  he,  "as  the 
ideas  of  its  founders  continue  dominant."  In  due  course  of 
time  we,  or  those  who  follow  us,  will  know  whether  Mr. 
Lowell  diagnosed  the  situation  correctly,  or  otherwise.  Mean- 
while, I  do  not  know  how  I  can  better  bring  to  an  end  this 
somewhat  lengthy  contribution  to  the  occasion,  than  by  re- 
peating, as  singularly  applicable  to  the  conditions  in  which 
we  find  ourselves,  these  verses  from  a  recent  poem,  than 
which  I  have  heard  none  in  the  days  that  now  are  which 


30 

strike  a  deeper  or  a  truer  chord,  or  one  more  appropriate  to 
this  New  England  Paschal  eve  : 

"The  tumult  and  the  shouting  dies, 

The  captains  and  the  kings  depart ; 
Still  stands  thine  ancient  sacrifice, 

An  humble  and  a  contrite  heart. 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget  — lest  we  forget ! 

"Far-called  our  navies  melt  away, 

On  dune  and  headline  sinks  the  fire  — 
Lo,  all  our  pomp  of  yesterday 

Is  one  with  Nineveh  and  Tyre ! 
Judge  of  the  nations,  spare  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget  —  lest  we  forget ! 

"If,  drunk  with  sight  of  power,  we  loose 
Wild  tongues  that  have  not  Thee  in  awe, 

Such  boasting  as  the  Gentiles  use 
Or  lesser  breeds  without  the  law — 

Lord  God  of  hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 

Lest  we  forget  —  lest  we  forget ! 

"  For  heathen  heart  that  puts  her  trust 

In  reeking  tube  and  iron  shard  — 
All  valiant  dust  that  builds  on  dust, 

And  guarding  calls  not  Thee  to  guard  — 
For  frantic  boast  and  foolish  word, 
Thy  mercy  on  thy  people,  Lord  ! 
Amen." 


Taken  in  connection  with  the  foregoing  paper,  the  following 
letter,  addressed  to  the  Hon.  Carl  Schurz,  is  self-explanatory  : 

BOSTON,  December  21,  1898. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  SCHURZ  : 

In  a  recent  letter  you  kindly  suggest  that  I  submit  to  you 
a  sketch  of  what,  I  think,  should  be  said  in  an  address  such 
as  it  is  proposed  should  now  be  put  forth  by  the  Anti- Impe- 
rialist I,eague  to  the  people  of  the  United  States. 

I  last  evening  read  a  paper  before  the  Lexington  Histori- 
cal Society,  in  which  I  discussed  the  question  of  extra-terri- 
torial expansion  from  the  historical  point  of  view.  A  copy 
of  this  paper  I  hope  soon  to  forward  you.  Meanwhile,  there 
is  one  aspect,  and,  to  my  mind,  the  all-important  aspect  of  the 
question,  which,  in  addressing  an  historical  society,  was  not 
germane.  I  refer  to  the  question  of  a  practical  policy  to  be 
pursued  by  us,  as  a  nation,  under  existing  conditions.  That 
Spain  has  abandoned  all  claim  of  sovereignty  over  the  Phil- 
ippine islands  admits  of  no  question.  Whether  the  United 
States  has  accepted  the  sovereignty  thus  abandoned  is  still 
an  open  question ;  but  this  I  do  not  regard  as  material. 
Nevertheless,  we  are  confronted  by  a  fact ;  and,  whenever  we 
criticise  the  policy  up  to  this  time  pursued,  we  are  met  with 
an  inquiry  as  to  what  we  have  to  propose  in  place  of  it.  We 
are  invited  to  stop  finding  fault  with  others,  and  to  suggest 
some  feasible  alternative  policy  ourselves. 

To  this  we  must,  therefore,  in  fairness,  address  ourselves. 
It  is,  in  my  judgment,  useless  to  attempt  to  carry  on  the  dis- 
cussion merely  in  the  negative  form.  As  opponents  of  an 
inchoate  policy  we  must,  in  place  of  what  we  object  to,  pro- 
pose something  positive,  or  we  must  abandon  the  field.  Ac- 
cepting the  alternative,  I  now  want  to  suggest  a  positive 
policy  for  the  consideration  of  those  who  feel  as  we  feel.  I 
wish  your  judgment  upon  it. 

There  has,  it  seems  to  me,  been  a  great  deal  of  idle 
"  Duty,"  "  Mission,"  and  "  Call  "  talk  on  the  subject  of  our 
recent  acquisition  of  "  Islands  beyond  the  Sea,"  and  the  ne- 
cessity of  adopting  some  policy,  commonly  described  as  "  Im- 
perial," in  dealing  with  them.  This  policy  is,  in  the  minds 


32 

of  most  people  who  favor  it,  to  be  indirectly  modelled  on  the 
policy  heretofore  so  successfully  pursued  under  somewhat 
similar  conditions  by  Great  Britain.  It  involves,  as  I  tried 
to  point  out  in  the  Lexington  paper  I  have  referred  to,  the 
abandonment  or  reversal  of  all  the  fundamental  principles  of 
our  government  since  its  origin,  and  of  the  foreign  policy  we 
have  heretofore  pursued.  This,  I  submit,  is  absolutely  un- 
necessary. Another  and  substitute  policy,  purely  American, 
as  contradistinguished  from  the  European  or  British,  known 
as  "  Imperial,"  policy,  can  readily  be  formulated. 

This  essentially  American_pplicy  would  be  based  both 
upon  our  cardinal  political  principles,  and  our  recent  foreign 
experiences.  It  is  commonly  argued  that,  having  destroyed 
the  existing  government  in  Cuba,  Porto  Rico,  and  the  Phil- 
ippines, we  have  assumed  a  political  responsiblity,  and  are 
under  a  moral  obligation  to  provide  another  government  in 
place  of  that  which  by  our  action  has  ceased  to  exist.  What 
has  been  our  course  heretofore  under  similar  circumstances  ? 
Precedents,  I  submit,  at  once  suggest  themselves.  Prece- 
dents, too,  directly  in  point,  and  within  your  and  my  easy 
recollection. 

I  refer  to  the  course  pursued  by  us  towards  Mexico  in  the 
year  1848,  and  again  in  1866;  towards  Hayti  for  seventy 
years  back ;  and  towards  Venezuela  as  recently  as  three 
years  ago.  It  is  said  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  islands  of 
the  Antilles,  and  much  more  those  of  the  Philippine  archi- 
pelago, are  as  yet  unfitted  to  maintain  a  government ;  and 
that  they  should  be  kept  in  a  condition  of  ' '  tutelage ' '  until 
they  are  fitted  so  to  do.  It  is  further  argued  that  a  stable 
government  is  necessary,  and  that  it  is  out  of  the  question 
for  us  to  permit  a  condition  of  chronic  disturbance  and  scan- 
dalous unrest  to  exist  so  near  our  own  borders  as  Cuba  and 
Porto  Rico.  Yet  how  long,  I  would  ask,  did  that  condition 
exist  in  Mexico  ?  And  with  what  results  ?  How  long  has 
it  existed  in  Hayti  ?  Has  the  government  of  Venezuela  ever 
been  ' '  stable  ' '  ?  Have  we  found  it  necessary  or  thought  it 
best  to  establish  a  governmental  protectorate  in  any  of  those 
immediately  adjacent  regions  ? 

What  has  been,  historically,  our  policy  —  the  American, 
as  distinguished  from  the  European  and  British  policy  — 


33 

towards  those  communities,  — two  of  them  Spanish,  one  Afri- 
can ?     So  far  as  foreign  powers  are  concerned,  we  have  laid 
down  the  principle  of  "  Hands-off."      So  far  as  their  own  — 
government  was  concerned,  we  insisted  that  the  only  way  to- 
learn  to  walk  was  to  try  to  walk,  and  that  the  history  of  man- 
kind did  not  show  that  nations  placed  under  systems  of  ' '  tute-   — 
lage,"  —  taught  to  lean  for  support  on  a  superior  power, — 
ever  acquired  the  faculty  of  independent  action. 

Of  this,  with  us,  fundamental  truth,  the  British  race  itself 
furnishes  a  very  notable  example.  In  the  forty-fourth  year  of 
the  Christian  era  the  island  of  Great  Britain  was  occupied  by 
what  the  ' '  Imperial ' '  Romans  adjudged  to  be  an  inferior 
race.  To  the  Romans  the  Britons  unquestionably  were  in- 
ferior. Every  child's  history  contains  an  account  of  the 
course  then  pursued  by  the  superior  towards  that  inferior 
race,  and  its  results.  The  Romans  occupied  Great  Britain, 
and  they  occupied  it  hard  upon  four  centuries,  holding  the 
people  in  "tutelage,"  and  protecting  them  against  them- 
selves, as  well  as  against  their  enemies.  With  what  result  ? 
So  emasculated  and  incapable  of  self-government  did  the 
people  of  England  become  during  their  ' '  tutelage ' '  that, 
when  Rome  at  last  withdrew,  they  found  themselves  totally 
unfitted  for  self-government,  much  more  for  facing  a  foreign 
enemy.  As  the  last,  and  best,  historian  of  the  English 
people  tells  us,  the  purely  despotic  system  of  the  imperial 
government  "  by  crushing  all  local  independence,  crushed  all 
local  vigor.  Men  forgot  how  to  fight  for  their  country  when 
they  forgot  how  to  govern  it."  '  The  end  was  that,  through 
six  centuries  more,  England  was  overrun,  first  by  those  of 
one  race,  and  then  by  those  of  another,  until  the  Normans 
established  themselves  in  it  as  conquerors  ;  and  then,  and  not 
until  then,  the  deteriorating  effect  of  a  system  of  long  con- 
tinued ' '  tutelage  ' '  ceased  to  be  felt,  and  the  islanders  became 
by  degrees  the  most  energetic,  virile,  and  self-sustaining  of 
races.  As  nearly,  therefore,  as  can  be  historically  stated,  it 
took  eight  centuries  for  the  people  of  England  to  overcome 
the  injurious  influence  of  four  centuries  of  just  such  a  system 
as  it  is  now  proposed  by  us  to  inflict  on  the  Philippines.2 

«  Green's  Short  History  (111.  Ed.) .    Vol.  I.  p.  9. 

2  The  Roman  legions  were  withdrawn  from  Great  Britain  in  410;   Magna  Charta 


34 

Hindostan  would  furnish  another  highly  suggestive  example 
of  the  educational  effects  of  "  tutelage  "  on  a  race.  After  a 
century  and  a  half  of  that  British  "tutelage,"  what  prog- 
ress has  India  made  towards  fitness  for  self-government  ?  Is 
the  end  in  sight  ? 

From  the  historical  point  of  view,  it  is  instructive  to  note 
the  exactly  different  results  reached  through  the  truly  Ameri- 
can policy  we  have  pursued  in  the  not  dissimilar  cases  of 
Hayti  and  Mexico.  While  Hayti,  it  is  true,  has  failed  to 
make  great  progress  in  one  century,  it  has  made  quite  as 
much  progress  as  England  made  during  any  equal  period 
immediately  after  Rome  withdrew  from  it.  And  that  degree 
of  slowness  in  growth,  which  with  equanimity  has  been  en- 
dured by  us  in  Hayti,  could  certainly  be  endured  by  us  in 
islands  on  the  coast  of  Asia.  It  cannot  be  gainsaid  that, 
through  our  insisting  on  the  policy  of  non-interference  our- 
selves, and  of  non-interference  by  European  nations,  Hayti 
has  been  brought  into  a  position  where  it  is  on  the  high  road 
to  better  things  in  future.  That  has  been  the  result  of  the 
prescriptive  American  policy.  With  Mexico,  the  case  is  far 
stronger.  We  all  know  that  in  1848,  after  our  war  of  spolia- 
tion, we  had  to  bolster  up  a  semblance  of  a  government  for 
Mexico,  with  which  to  negotiate  a  treaty  of  peace.  Mexico 
at  that  time  was  reduced  by  us  to  a  condition  of  utter  anar- 
chy. Under  the  theory  now  gaining  in  vogue,  it  would  then 
have  been  our  plain  duty  to  make  of  Mexico  an  extra-terri- 
torial dependency,  and  protect  it  against  itself.  We  wisely 
took  a  different  course.  L,ike  other  Spanish  communities  in 
America,  Mexico  than  passed  through  a  succession  of  revo- 
lutions, from  which  it  became  apparent  the  people  were  not 
in  a  fit  condition  for  self-government.  Nevertheless,  sternly 
insisting  on  non-interference  by  outside  powers,  we  ourselves 
wisely  left  that  country  to  work  out  its  own  salvation  in  its 
own  way. 

In  1862,  when  the  United  States  was  involved  in  the  War 

•was  signed  in  June,  1215,  and  the  reign  of  French  kings  over  England  came  to  a 
close  in  1217.  It  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the  deliberation  with  which  natural 
processes  work  themselves  out,  that  the  period  which  elapsed  between  the  with- 
drawal of  Rome  from  England,  and  the  recovery  of  England  by  the  English,  should 
have  exceeded  by  more  than  a  century  the  time  which  has  as  yet  elapsed  since 
England  was  thus  recovered. 


35 

of  the  Rebellion,  the  Europeans  took  advantage  of  the  situa- 
tion to  invade  Mexico,  and  to  establish  there  a  "  stable  gov- 
ernment." They  undertook  to  protect  that  people  against 
themselves,  and  to  erect  for  them  a  species  of  protectorate, 
such  as  we  now  propose  for  the  Philippines.  As  soon  as  our 
war  was  over,  we  insisted  upon  the  withdrawal  of  Europe 
from  Mexico.  What  followed  is  matter  of  recent  history. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  recall  it.  We  did  not  reduce  Mexico  into 
a  condition  of  "tutelage,"  or  establish  over  it  a  "protecto- 
rate" of  our  own.  We,  on  the  contrary,  insisted  that  it 
should  stand  on  its  own  legs ;  and,  by  so  doing,  learn  to  stand 
firmly  on  them,  just  as  a  child  learns  to  walk,  by  being  com- 
pelled to  try  to  walk,  not  by  being  kept  everlastingly  in 
"leading  strings."  This  was  the  American,  as  contradistin- 
guished from  the  European  policy ;  and  Mexico  to-day  walks 
firmly. 

Finally  take  the  case  of  Venezuela  in  1895.  I  believe  I 
am  not  mistaken  when  I  say  that,  during  the  twenty-five 
preceding  years,  Venezuela  had  undergone  almost  as  many 
revolutions.  It  certainly  had  not  enjoyed  a  stable  govern- 
ment. Through  disputes  over  questions  of  boundary,  Great 
Britain  proposed  to  confer  that  indisputable  blessing  upon  a 
considerable  region.  We  interfered  under  a  most  question- 
able extension  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  asserted  the 
principle  of  "Hands-off."  Having  done  this, — having  in 
so  far  perpetuated  what  we  now  call  the  scandal  of  anarchy, 
—  we  did  not  establish  "tutelage,"  or  a  protectorate,  our- 
selves. We  wisely  left  Venezuela  to  work  out  its  destiny  in 
its  own  way,  and  in  the  fullness  of  time.  That  policy  was 
far-seeing,  beneficent,  and  strictly  American  in  1895.  Why, 
then,  make  almost  indecent  haste  to  abandon  it  in  1898  ? 

Instead,  therefore,  of  finding  our  precedents  in  the  experience 
of  England,  or  that  of  any  other  European  power,  I  would 
suggest  that  the  true  course  for  this  country  now  to  pursue 
is  exactly  the  course  we  have  heretofore  pursued  under  simi- 
lar conditions.  Let  us  be  true  to  our  own  traditions,  and 
follow  our  own  precedents.  Having  relieved  the  Spanish 
islands  from  the  dominion  of  Spain,  we  should  declare  con- 
cerning them  a  policy  of  "  Hands-off,"  both  on  our  own  part 
and  on  the  part  of  other  powers.  We  should  say  that  the 


36 

independence  of  those  islands  is  morally  guaranteed  by  us 
as  a  consequence  of  the  treaty  of  Paris,  and  then  leave  them 
just  as  we  have  left  Hayti,  and  just  as  we  left  Mexico  and 
Venezuela,  to  adopt  for  themselves  such  form  of  government 
as  the  people  thereof  are  ripe  for.  In  the  cases  of  Mexico 
and  Venezuela,  and  in  the  case  of  Hayti,  we  have  not  found 
it  necessary  to  interfere  ever  or  at  all.  It  is  not  yet  apparent 
why  we  should  find  it  necessary  to  interfere  with  islands  so 
much  more  remote  from  us  than  Hayti,  and  than  Mexico 
and  Venezuela,  as  are  the  Philippines. 

In  this  matter  we  can  thus  well  afford  to  be  consistent,  as 
well  as  logical.  Our  fundamental  principles,  those  of  the 
Declaration,  the  Constitution,  and  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  have 
not  yet  been  shown  to  be  unsound  — why  should  we  be  in  such 
a  hurry  to  abandon  them  ?  Our  precedents  are  close  at  hand, 
and  satisfactory  —  why  look  away  from  them  to  follow  those 
of  Great  Britain  ?  Why  need  we,  all  of  a  sudden,  be  so  very 
English  and  so  altogether  French,  even  borrowing  their 
nomenclature  of  "imperialism?"  Why  can  not  we,  too,  in 
the  language  of  Burke,  be  content  to  set  our  feet  ' '  in  the 
tracks  of  our  forefathers,  where  we  can  neither  wander  nor 
stumble  ? ' '  The  only  difficulty  in  the  way  of  our  so  doing 
seems  to  be  that  we  are  in  such  a  desperate  hurry ;  while 
natural  influences  and  methods,  though  in  the  great  end 
indisputably  the  wisest  and  best,  always  require  time  in 
which  to  work  themselves  out  to  their  results.  Wiser  than 
the  Almighty  in  our  own  conceit,  we  think  to  get  there  at 
once  ;  the  ' '  there  ' '  in  this  case  being  everlasting  ' '  tute- 
lage," as  in  India,  instead  of  ultimate  self-government,  as  in 
Mexico. 

The  policy  heretofore  pursued  by  us  in  such  cases,  —  the 
policy  of  "  Hands-off,"  and  "Walk  alone,"  is  distinctly 
American ;  it  is  not  European,  not  even  British.  It  recog- 
nizes the  principles  of  our  Declaration  of  Independence. 
It  recognizes  the  truth  that  all  just  government  exists  by  the 
consent  of  the  governed.  It  recognizes  the  existence  of 
the  Monroe  Doctrine.  In  a  word,  it  recognizes  every  princi- 
ple and  precedent,  whether  natural  or  historical,  which  has 
from  the  beginning  lain  at  the  foundation  of  our  American 
polity.  It  does  not  attempt  the  hypocritical  contradiction  in 


37 

terms,  of  pretending  to  elevate  a  people  into  a  self-sustaining  - 
condition  through  the  leading-string  process  of  "tutelage." 
It  appeals  to  our  historical  experience,  applying  to  present 
conditions  the  lessons  of  Hayti,  Mexico,  and  Venezuela. 
In  dealing  with  those  cases,  we  did  not  find  a  great  standing 
army  or  an  enormous  navy  necessary  ;  and,  if  not  then,  why 
now  ?  Why  such  a  difference  between  the  Philippines  and 
Hayti  ?  Is  Cuba  larger  or  nearer  to  us  than  Mexico  ?  When, 
therefore,  in  future  they  ask  us  what  course  and  policy  we 
Anti-Imperialists  propose,  our  answer  should  be  that  we  pro- 
pose to  pursue  towards  the  islands  of  Antilles  and  the  Philip- 
pines the  same  common-sense  course  and  truly  American 
policy  which  were  by  us  heretofore  pursued  with  such  signal 
success  in  the  cases  of  Hayti,  Mexico,  and  Venezuela,  all  in- 
habited by  people  equally  unfit  for  self-government,  and 
geographically  much  closer  to  ourselves.  We  propose  to 
guarantee  them  against  outside  meddling,  and,  above  all,  — - 
from  "tutelage,"  and  make  them,  by  walking,  learn  to  walk 
alone. 

This,  I  submit,  is  not  only  an  answer  to  the  question  so 
frequently  put  to  us,  but  a  positive  policy  following  estab- 
lished precedents,  and,  what  is  more,  purely  American,  as 
distinguished  from  a  European  or  British,  policy  and  pre- 
cedents. 

I  remain,  etc., 

CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS. 

Hon.  CarlSchurz, 

16  E.  64th  Street,  New  York  City. 


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